Friday, March 5, 2010

Know what I Mean?

Today was bliss!

I attended ML Workshop #3--great job John and Joycelyn!

I really enjoyed the tag-team effect of John and Joycelyn. It was great getting some male perspective on how to interact with your kids from John. He taught with a sense of humour and made things very practical for all. Joycelyn is so fun to watch and learn from when she is excited about what she is teaching. She kept jumping up and saying, "Oh, and here's one more thing..." It was contagious and we got caught up in it.

If you get a chance to learn from them, take Nike's advice and just do it!

(We missed you Therese!)

Anyway, I downloaded a lot. But my processing chip (my brain) is like a commodore 64 and can only compute so much. So, as I learned today: "Sleep on it. Give your brain a chance to rest and then once the information is processed, start to act on it." Expect to see results coming out sometime next week as my brain goes into hibernation to make all these new connections and applications of Cognitive Functions in the area of reading.

But here is one gem that I HAVE to throw in. And it's in the area of the Core of Mediated Learning. And it's this:

When you bring meaning into the discussion with your kids, make it meaningful to them.

Now, that sounds obvious enough. However, I was so focused on making sure I hit all three core elements that I forgot an important clue: relevance.

I have been infusing meaning into some of the mediated moments by talking about ideas or elements that are not important to my child. When your child makes the connection that what he/she is learning has significance to her/him then meaning is fully achieved.

So, does this mean all my other mediated moments have been complete flops?